I wrote this as a comment in another diary and was asked to turn it into a diary itself. The comment was in response to the attacks aimed at the author of this well reasoned diary by arquebus:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/10/3/183350/735
I don't necessarily agree with every detail of the diary but it is well thought out and well written. But the key point to my comment and the following diary is that we here at dKos really need to wake the hell up...
...we need to wake up from this bench-warming, monday-morning quarterback bullshit and start using our intelligence and skills to help our team win plain and simple. Well what is our "team" you ask? Is it just you? Cause if all you care about is what you think and maybe the 2 or 3 other people in the whole world who might share your exact opinions (and really, counting your dog is just sad :P ), then I have some bad news for you. Your "team" is never going to "win". If you want to boot every person who has ever compromised a few too many times, in particular say the DLC supporters who believe riding the fence is the way to go, despite these people believing the same 90% beliefs you do, then again, you are doomed to inevitable defeat.
I'm not saying you compromise your morals or give up the things you believe in but man you people who eviscerate others (on your own team!) for stepping a foot out of line are only hurting yourselves. Am I saying we should smooth talk or cowardly back off our stances? No, I am saying we fight, but don't fight each other, at least not out in the open. Healthy debate is great, and the air of public view is often very cleansing for the truth, but when you go to the point of seeing friend as foe and destroying his argument and credibility to make your point, you have lost, and will continue to lose until you wake up!
The following is my comment, edited for more general effect...
General comment to all...
...but I picked [the comment I responded to] because it seems the first, most visceral response here. And therein lies the problem. Do I have visceral, gut wrenching feelings every time I start to add up all the bullshit that I know has happened in the last five years - yer damn right I do. But is it going to do me any good to tear my country apart to fix it?
[The diary I linked to above] is honestly one of the best I have ever read. I think most of the detractors [there] are missing the point that the author is not saying that Bush is not a bad guy or even that some of his actions could not be construed by a large number of people as "evil"; rather, he is making the case that when you start to tell most average people that he is the boogeyman character they have feared their whole lives, they aren't going to believe it.
Is that a failure of our media? or is it the failure of an incurious, bored, self-serving populace that just doesn't give enough of a shit to care about finding out the truth? I think its a bit of both, but thats besides the point.
As it stands now, we are allowing this divide-and-conquer mentality to take over our discussions here and I was a bit put off (not that I don't appreciate opposing opinions) by the reactions to Senator Obama's words here. I mean honestly, do any of you really want a United States Senator to stand in front of the capitol building with a torch and pitchfork and have a press conference about leading us to the white house to "turn out the turncoats"? Man, I sure hope not because then we really are in trouble.
Yes we need stronger Dem leaders...yes the republicans in power now have used and abused their elected and appointed offices to direct this country in a direction most of us now see as "heading towards cataclysmic doom" but wasting all the intelligence of Kossacks on back-biting because we feel powerless is just plain old common STUPID.
Should this be an arena to challenge and hone our message through debate and foster support for our chosen candidates? Hell yes... Should it be a place you come to lurk and then jump all over someone's comments/diaries because they don't follow your belief system 100%? I hope not or I have seriously wasted my time here.
Being progressive to me is about coming together as rational, intelligent, thoughtful people and saying "Let's put down the ridiculous, partisan arguments of the past on both sides and look at how we can move FORWARD in a new, positive direction together". Do I think we should compromise everything we believe in to reach this goal? Hell no... But do I want to live in a country I believe in, where I love my neighbor despite his desire for an Uzi, and realize to achieve that harmony SOME compromise must be made? YES for crying out loud! If you don't, then you don't understand, and ultimately don't believe in, what America is really all about in the first place.
I'm going to make a parallel argument to illustrate my point but I want to be clear that just because I use the analogy does not mean I am comparing the characters so leave the semantics debate alone and try to understand the point. Many times here on dKos, I have seen the argument about how the Bush policies of "You're either with us or against us" are arrogant, thoughtless, and anger-provoking to those around the world who already probably have a bit of a grudge against the USA. Most of us here seem to agree that the "Kill em all" attitude of this administration is about as braindead as you can get, especially when you consider that these people's main choice of weapon is to kill themselves anyway.
We here understand that to stop people from hating us so much, that they will kill us at will, we must try to understand what is driving them to this psychotic break that allows them to believe that killing innocent civilians is justified. Is it really just religion? I don't think its that simple and I think we here are all grown up enough to understand that. However, because of our seething anger at Bush and his cronies, we are supporting the very same notion - either agree with everything we say -KOS, Obama, Armando, etc- or we are going to attempt to destroy you every chance we can with our biting rhetoric. Isn't that really the same false argument? I understand there are differences, but again, try to see the larger point. What fucking good does it do to try to beat the hell out of each other like this, using our intelligence and knowledge to tear ourselves down? We aren't making each other stronger and if you believe we are, again, your point of view is a bit simplistic.
How about this question - do you feel that you(...everyone should ask themselves this) did everything you possibly could to defeat Bush (or the repubs) in 2000 or 2004? I can't imagine anyone honestly saying yes. I know there are people who practically killed themselves out there but obviously there was alot more all of us could have done to take back the country. But with all we did do, and all the info out there about Bush and his incompetence,lies, and mistakes, why were we unable to beat him? Yes I know fraud and all that will be thrown out (as an excuse) but seriously, this guy is likely the worst-president-ever and we couldn't beat him by enough to make any tampering irrelevant? I mean seriously, there probably WAS at least some fraud but fuck who really cares - the real question should be how is it possible it was even that close in the first place? Thats like the best team in baseball playing the worst and losing to them on the last pitch on a questionable called strike - it shouldn't have ever been that close in the first place!
Why can't we convince the other half of the country to vote in their own best interest? Well shit its not hard to see when you look here at this collection of intelligent, progressive people nitpicking at each other's words and biting each other's heads off because they aren't screaming YOUR exact message (grammatically proper and spellchecked as well, of course) at the top of their lungs. How about this thought - what if Obama never looks at this site again because several people told him he was figuratively full of shit?
Seriously, don't just knee jerk, really think about it - a highly popular public official on our side who has to choose and watch his words VERY carefully, takes a chance and tries to truly engage the netroots and what do we do, publicly piss all over his efforts and essentially boo him off stage like we are all at the Apollo. Did anyone really expect him to come out and say "Fuck Bush and all those other pussy Dems in congress who won't stand up and fight like real men!" Should we ignore it if he said something we disagree with and just go along? Hell no... but what have you gained by going off so vehemently on him that you possibly drove him away for good? Is he really such a "chickenshit" "DLC" "DINO" "Bush-lite" guy that its ok with you to treat him like shit when he is just stating his opinion? If any of you said yes you need to go find your dad and let him spank some sense into ya.
So you disagree with someone's point - counterpoint, and be respectful in doing so, especially with your "allies", rather than try to tear them down. In the case of Obama, if you disagreed with his point, wouldn't it have been just as productive to send him a private email and discuss the finer points rather than just running off at the mouth and castigating him on the most public, progressive forum in the ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD! This kinda lazyman's intellectualism where you pick apart someone's words or use name calling and opinions, rather than facts, to minimize their arguments is so disgusting it makes me want to hurl and THAT is the main reason why people can only deal with this place for so long before a GBCW diary comes out of their hopper.
We can do better than this people...[that] diary is a beautiful, well written summary of what we really want in the sense of discourse in this country and especially here on dKos. If we can't figure that out then we truly might as well just pack it in and head for the hills...
And don't worry, I have no illusions that I won't get flamed or have my arguments twisted and falsely dissected by the very same hard-headed people I am talking to here but hopefully some of you, at least one of you, remembers what you love about this country and is sick and tired of seeing what is being done to it and would rather use their brain for SOMETHING more productive than trashing your friends (even if they are only "friends" every third Tuesday)...
..as the saying goes "If I've reached one person..."